WATCH LIVE: You’re invited to explore a piece of WWII history with Nautilus Nation in the blue ocean backyard of central California!

Continuing the Nautilus Exploration Program’s mission to explore the oceans, the Corps of Exploration on E/V Nautilus and scientists on shore participating via telepresence will conduct the first-ever visual survey of the sunken aircraft carrier USS Independence.

In 1951,Independence was scuttled offshore San Francisco where she now rests within the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

The wreck was acoustically surveyed in 2015 by The Boeing Company and Coda Octopus working with NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ Maritime Heritage Program and West Coast Region, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

Our expedition will be the first time humans will lay eyes on Independence in over 65 years.

The aircraft carrier was the first vessel constructed during the middle of World War II as an adaptation of a Cleveland class cruiser hull turned into a fast carrier. Constructed in New Jersey in 1943, Independence reached Pearl Harbor in July of 1943.

She was involved in numerous battles in the final two years of the war, including her planes’ attack on and sinking of the Japanese battleship Musashi during the battle for the Philippines.

At her christening, Independence represented the first of a new class of carriers built on converted cruiser hulls. She joined the Pacific Fleet in June 1943. She participated in major campaigns of the Pacific front in attacks on Rabaul, Tarawa, Luzon, and Okinawa. Most notably, Independence was part of the carrier group that sank the last remaining vestige of the Japanese Mobile Fleet at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, including the battleship Musashi. USS Independence received eight battle stars due to the heroic actions of the Sailors, Officers, Pilots and Marines who served onboard. (Image credit: NOAA, Boeing, and Coda Octopus)